When I began this blog, I decided I had to work on how a teacher maintains status quo while moving with the world. I've been doing a lot of soul searching this year. In my reflections on what has changed over my fourteen years of teaching, I've noticed that I'm not getting any younger and teaching isn't getting any easier. Not to mention, things have changed a great deal in the world of technology.
I think about how people talk about the "seven year itch" in a marriage. I wonder if the same can be true for a profession like teaching. Afterall, it is all about relationships, communication, and learning the fine line between maintainig and moving things forward. I think I might be going through one of these "seven year itch" years. But instead of letting it get to me and destroy what I have already built in my career, I'm committed to reflect and decide how to move forward.
I was reading this blog by Mr. Bernia and was doing a lot of thinking. You see, Mr. Bernia talks about all of the movements of the world to progression and how technology (internet) is our current movement. I started to reflect upon that. My high school years were spent learning how to type and do word processing and although the information super highway was under construction and some roads were already moving, I was left behind. I don't think there were many public schools actually getting into internet usage in the early 90's (and perhaps I'm wrong), but colleges across the nation were jumping on board. I remember trying to grasp this concept of an imaginary highway system out there somewhere (in space?) that people would be able to get any information they wanted from anywhere in the world.
It seemed it was "out there" like a Twilight Zone episode, but here it was, and in my first year of college, I was fumbling through it by myself and soon found myself "hooked". A lot has changed in the world of computers and the internet since then, but I've always found myself wanting to be right there right at the cutting edge of it - especially when it came to teaching.
I can't help but feel that even though I want to be moving with the world that the world of education is just steps behind the rest of the world - one of the biggest challenges has been technology acquisition. Currently I'm struggling with balancing the web 2.0 tools I want to use in my classroom on a daily basis with how do I manage that with one mobile notebook lab shared between seven teachers?
Unfortunately, I teach in a very rural, low-income area and the money to purchase technology to keep up with the times is just not there. There seems to be a lot out there if you need a few digital cameras for your classroom or a new printer, but for the bigger ticket items, the grants are harder to find. I'm not giving up, though. I can't. If I want to be a teacher who is moving with the world, I can't give up, and if I want to do what is best for my students, I must keep treading along. I just hope and pray that I can find the perfect grant to support my goals for my classroom and the goals of 21st century learners.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
The single best thing
I've been inundated by thoughts of the last day of school. Can't wait for it to get here. We're all tired of the dreary weather we've been having (seems like months now and really is if you count all the snow we had before all of this rain). The kids are restless, and the teachers are exhausted. So much to do, so little time to do it in. Changes in budget have everyone on their seats waiting for the other shoe to fall. Busy lives outside of the workplace keep us hopping and wondering if this merry-go-round will ever stop so we can get off and rest.
Whew! We all get to this place in our profession. We're in a "rut" of some kind and can't seem to get out. These times can seem very cumbersome, but one of the best ways to get out of that rut is to think about the single best thing that has happened in your classroom this year.
So, I began to think about this. What is the single best thing that happened in my classroom this year?
So much has happened and changed in my classroom this year with the start of my attendance to our state educational technology conference. There I was introduced to Edmodo (www.edmodo.com), a social networking website for teachers and students. In a short amount of time I had my classes up and running on Edmodo and was trying different activities, but the best one I have going in there is the global classroom I've built with Ms. Chia, a teacher from Singapore.
We're both new to having a global classroom online in Edmodo, and we each had our own ideas of how this might work. Yet, we quickly agreed to allow the students to really make the decisions about what they want to learn from each other with some guided thinking added from the teachers at both ends. It was my Geography class that was participating in this project, but they are also my Language Arts students. In my LA class, I had started my poetry unit, and I was astounded how that caught fire and the wild fire took over the forest.
One student who has a passion for poetry decided to post a poem she'd written, in the global classroom. That sparked another student to post and another, and another, and another...you get the picture. Over the weekend, I hadn't been in the "classroom" much until later Sunday night. It was then I had discovered that one of Ms. Chia's students had compiled all of the poems that had been posted into an online "book". I was so touched. This was not a directed project by any means. It was one that was completely self-directed by the students. I must admit that I truly teared up with emotion. I don't think I could have given an assignment that would have touched both sides of the world in quite the way that the students did - all on their own.
No, the poetry is not perfect. In fact, there are many things as a Language Arts teacher pains me to see in "print", but I don't want to change a bit of it. To do so would mean that I've encroached on their space - the one thing they did all on their own without any assistance from the adults in their lives. Isn't that what it's all about? Getting students to take over the driver's seat of their education?
So, the single best thing that happened in my classroom was the global connection we made. Everything else I taught in that class pales in comparison to that activity. They couldn't have learned more if I had planned my life away for the best lessons in the world. They couldn't have gained any more knowledge if I had the highest of professional degrees. Self-discovery and building a connection across the globe will be a learning experience my students will carry with them for the rest of their lives. As a teacher, I could not ask for more; I was able to touch lives - forever.
Whew! We all get to this place in our profession. We're in a "rut" of some kind and can't seem to get out. These times can seem very cumbersome, but one of the best ways to get out of that rut is to think about the single best thing that has happened in your classroom this year.
So, I began to think about this. What is the single best thing that happened in my classroom this year?
So much has happened and changed in my classroom this year with the start of my attendance to our state educational technology conference. There I was introduced to Edmodo (www.edmodo.com), a social networking website for teachers and students. In a short amount of time I had my classes up and running on Edmodo and was trying different activities, but the best one I have going in there is the global classroom I've built with Ms. Chia, a teacher from Singapore.
We're both new to having a global classroom online in Edmodo, and we each had our own ideas of how this might work. Yet, we quickly agreed to allow the students to really make the decisions about what they want to learn from each other with some guided thinking added from the teachers at both ends. It was my Geography class that was participating in this project, but they are also my Language Arts students. In my LA class, I had started my poetry unit, and I was astounded how that caught fire and the wild fire took over the forest.
One student who has a passion for poetry decided to post a poem she'd written, in the global classroom. That sparked another student to post and another, and another, and another...you get the picture. Over the weekend, I hadn't been in the "classroom" much until later Sunday night. It was then I had discovered that one of Ms. Chia's students had compiled all of the poems that had been posted into an online "book". I was so touched. This was not a directed project by any means. It was one that was completely self-directed by the students. I must admit that I truly teared up with emotion. I don't think I could have given an assignment that would have touched both sides of the world in quite the way that the students did - all on their own.
No, the poetry is not perfect. In fact, there are many things as a Language Arts teacher pains me to see in "print", but I don't want to change a bit of it. To do so would mean that I've encroached on their space - the one thing they did all on their own without any assistance from the adults in their lives. Isn't that what it's all about? Getting students to take over the driver's seat of their education?
So, the single best thing that happened in my classroom was the global connection we made. Everything else I taught in that class pales in comparison to that activity. They couldn't have learned more if I had planned my life away for the best lessons in the world. They couldn't have gained any more knowledge if I had the highest of professional degrees. Self-discovery and building a connection across the globe will be a learning experience my students will carry with them for the rest of their lives. As a teacher, I could not ask for more; I was able to touch lives - forever.
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